Militancy on rise in Egypt

Mar. 19, 2014
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A Egyptian tourist bus that was bombed in a terror attack on Feb. 16 sits at Taba crossing in Sinai near the Israel border. Three South Koreans and the Egyptian driver were killed in the attack. The bomb was under the driver's seat. / YONHAP/EPA

by Sarah Lynch, Special for USA TODAY

by Sarah Lynch, Special for USA TODAY

CAIRO â?? Egyptian militants have intensified violence ahead of a presidential election to pick a replacement for jailed president Mohamed Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood party has called the ouster "a murderous military coup d'etat."

Militants who seek an Egypt under strict Islamic law are saying the ouster of Morsi and arrests of his leading party members prove that only violence will achieve their aim, analysts said.

"The attacks are increasing in frequency, in intensity and in geographic spread," said Issandr El Amrani, North Africa director for the International Crisis Group, in Cairo.

"We are looking at a spreading armed campaign against the government."

In January, a truck full of explosives was driven to the gate of the police headquarters in Cairo, killing four people and wounding dozens more. Three other bomb attacks at police stations and a movie theater left two more dead.

In February, four people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a tourist bus near Egypt's border with Israel in the Sinai peninsula. Gunmen also killed a police officer who had been a guard for a judge presiding over a case against Morsi. A bomb exploded on a bridge in Giza, apparently targeting security forces guarding the Israeli embassy.

On Saturday, gunmen shot and killed six Egyptian soldiers at an army checkpoint north of Cairo two days after gunmen opened fire on an army bus in Cairo.

Outside the capital, terrorists have been concentrating most major attacks in the northern Sinai, an arid and mountainous land in eastern Egypt on the border with Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

"You might be able to call it an insurgency in parts of Sinai," El Amrani said. "In the rest of the country, it's not an insurgency as much as terrorist activity or activity by armed groups."

"But the pattern is that it is growing," he said.

Violence has spread since Egyptian authorities crushed sit-ins organized by backers of Morsi, who was ousted in July by the Egyptian army one year after his election. The army arrested Morsi following days of massive protests against his rule, which his detractors said was veering into dictatorship and religious law.

The public will vote on a replacement as early as April, but candidates deemed too radical or tied too closely to Morsi are barred. Meanwhile, shootings and assaults against mostly military and police are happening almost daily.

The deadliest and dominant jihadist group here is Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or Supporters of Jerusalem â?? an al-Qaeda-inspired group that is comprised predominantly of Egyptians, analysts said.

The Sinai-based group has claimed responsibility for most major attacks against Egypt and Israel since its formation three years ago, including the January bomb blasts, and a recent attack that brought down an Egyptian military helicopter as well as an attempt to assassinate the Interior minister.

It also took credit for the bomb that blew up a tourist bus in which 32 South Korean tourists were riding after visiting the ancient Greek Orthodox St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai. The attack was seen as an attempt to frighten away tourists, an important source of revenue for the Egypt government.

David Barnett, a research associate at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., described Egypt's violence as an insurgency in its infancy.

"The jihadist groups weren't necessarily ready to pounce as soon as Morsi was overthrown," Barnett said. "No one foresaw that. So they are, to a certain extent, still playing catch-up to the whole situation."

The violence has yet to reach the lethal levels Egypt withstood in the 1990s during the reign of Hosni Mubarak, when jihadists targeted government figures, police, tourists and civilians, killing dozens of people.

"It's possible that we could see the same, and it's not inconceivable it could be worse," said Anthony Skinner, director of Maplecroft, a global risk consultancy in the United Kingdom.

Many criminals, including militant Islamists incarcerated under Mubarak, gravitated to the Sinai when they were released after his ouster, Skinner said. Security and border control has been weaker in the North Sinai, and militants there have greater access to arms from countries such as Libya, where an uprising unlocked weapons arsenals that had been closed off to militants.

Militant Islamists are also using the ouster of Morsi and the subsequent crackdown on his supporters to fuel their ranks, Skinner said.

"The situation is more volatile and more difficult to control" than in the 1990s, he said.

Complaining about the West's indifference to Morsi's ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood said on its English-language website that Europe has overlooked that "a murderous military coup d'etat was executed by the generals in Egypt. ... It is an evidently illegitimate coup by all constitutional, humanitarian, legal and democratic standards."

Egypt's new Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab, who was appointed by army-backed President Adly Mansour, said Egypt is taking steps to tamp down the militant violence.

"We will work together to restore security and safety to Egypt and crush terrorism in all corners of the country," he said after his appointment, according to Reuters.

Egyptian security forces have destroyed smuggling tunnels that run under the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas, a terrorist entity that originated as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian army says it has killed dozens of suspected militants, arrested hundreds more and destroyed suspected militant hideouts as well as arms depots, local news media reported. The truth of the claims is difficult to confirm.

The military says it could do a much better job cracking down on the terrorists if it had more help from the United States.

John Edwin Mroz, president and CEO of EastWest Institute, an international organization that focuses on resolving conflict, said Egyptian authorities don't understand why Washington is withholding military assistance that could boost security efforts.

Regaining control of the northern Sinai where militant activity abounds may depend on whether Egypt gets 11 Apache helicopters that are being withheld because President Obama ordered a freeze on U.S. military aid to Egypt after Morsi's ouster, Mroz said.

"They just don't have the manpower otherwise to do it because of the terrain â?? the size and nature of the terrain," said Mroz, who recently met with Egyptian leaders in the ministries of defense and foreign affairs.